Police Perspective: Focusing on burglary and domestic violence across Doncaster

The demands around incidents of domestic abuse is high, with these incidents often accounting for around 20 per cent of our demand in Doncaster. The risk to the victims in these cases is obvious, so this is something we must aim to get right first time.

We are restructuring the teams who investigate domestic abuse in Doncaster, to build in additional capacity, and enable the teams to work more effectively. This will have the added benefit of also reducing demand on our response teams, meaning they have more capacity to deal with other incidents.

Burglary is another area of focus for us. We have seen some really good work around this in recent months, with a reduction in these incidents from September to December 2022.

Despite this positive change, we are aware we still have work to do, both in reducing the number of incidents of burglary and in securing convictions. To help achieve continued positive results, and drive these figures down further, we will be utilising the skills of our existing staff and creating a team with a specific focus on burglary.

But while domestic abuse and burglary may be areas of particular focus for us, that doesn’t mean we won’t be continuing our work in other areas.

Our work to tackle serious violent crime continues. The numbers of offences are slowly falling, but we must continue to work hard to ensure we are doing all we can to protect our communities from incidents of violence.

The operation to disrupt organised crime gangs in Doncaster is continuing to have a positive impact, with 67 people arrested as part of the activity so far. Over £1 million of cannabis plants have been seized, and a number of weapons, including six firearms have been removed from the streets.

There has also been change in our neighbourhood teams this year, with the official launch of the Doncaster North Team just a few weeks ago taking us from three to four NPTs. This is a really positive move, enabling us to work better with our partners and provide local solutions to local issues. These changes will be further bolstered by the arrival of additional officers joining the teams throughout the year as the national uplift programme continues.

As a force, we know we need to be innovative and try to meet the challenges we face with new ways of working. It’s not always about having more – but about doing the best with what we have.

I hope these changes will have a big impact in helping create better outcomes for our communities across this city.